Full Speed

by Jacqueline Harvey

  ‘Hello,’ the driver said cheerily as he hopped out with a satchel in his hand.

  ‘Hello,’ the twins replied in unison.

  The man walked up to the front door and pressed the intercom button.

  ‘Delivery,’ he said.

  There was a man’s voice on the other end saying he would be right down.

  Max spun around and pushed Kensy ahead of him, the pair skittering into the darkness. Kensy pulled on Max’s arm.

  ‘Wait,’ she said and dived into the covered porch of the house next door where they ducked down out of sight.

  Max looked at her, his palms turned upwards.

  ‘We might as well hear his voice. See if you can record it,’ Kensy whispered.

  Max nodded and pressed a button on the side of his watch.

  They heard the door open. Kensy peered through a crack in the timber.

  ‘Do I need to sign for it?’ the man in the suit asked the driver as he took the envelope.

  ‘Here, please,’ the other fellow replied.

  When the suited man closed the door the twins sped away, running all the way home, arriving puffing and panting and apologising for taking so long.

  Kensy dumped the bag of groceries onto the island bench and realised that her parents and Song were all looking somewhat stunned.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ She frowned.

  There was a stony silence.

  Max eyeballed his father. ‘Clearly there’s something wrong, Dad. What is it?’

  ‘The Beacon’s been hacked,’ Ed said candidly.

  ‘And Mr Fitz is missing,’ Song added quickly, as if saying the words at lightning speed would render them untrue.

  Fitz’s eyes fluttered open. His head was pounding, but much worse was the searing pain in his left shoulder. He couldn’t see anything in the pitch black and there was a strong smell of damp and another scent he couldn’t put his finger on. He struggled to sit up and felt in his pocket for his phone, but it wasn’t there. Reaching around in the darkness with his good arm, his hand collided with something furry. It shot out from under his grasp, sending a shiver down his spine. That smell he couldn’t place – he knew it now. Rats. Something brushed against his leg and Fitz kicked it away.

  He had to find his phone. Using his good arm the man pushed himself onto his knees, doing his best to ignore the excruciating pain. He had a feeling his shoulder was either dislocated or broken – which didn’t bode well.

  Fitz fumbled about in the darkness until finally his hand bumped against what he was looking for. He grabbed the device and upon his touch, the screen lit up. There was only one bar of signal, but that should have been enough to get a message to Ed. He’d have a look around to see if there was a way out first.

  Fitz found the torch function on his device and stood up, cradling his injured arm. As he shone the light about it became apparent that he was in some sort of bunker. It had a rounded roof and rows of bunk beds three high along either wall, enough to accommodate thirty people. Of course the hatch he’d fallen through hadn’t allowed him to land on one of those. Instead he’d plummeted at least fifteen metres, by his calculations, to the concrete floor below. As well as the beds there were other household items too. Chests of drawers, a table, chairs and a gas lamp. There was even a broom in the corner. To his great relief the place wasn’t crawling with rats, but there was a stench nonetheless. He spied two doors at either end of the room.

  Fitz had known about the Swiss government’s obsession with building bunkers during the war, despite the fact that they were a neutral country. In the years since, many of them had been decommissioned, but following a nuclear power plant accident in Japan, the authorities made a decision to ensure that the entire Swiss population could be housed underground for months, should the need ever arise. This one didn’t look as though it was in contention for future use. It would have been a bleak place to live at any time.

  Fitz walked over to inspect the lantern and was pleased to see that there was still liquid in the lower glass compartment. He pulled a cigarette lighter from his pocket (though the man wasn’t a smoker he always carried one with him) and spent the next few minutes endeavouring to get it working. With one arm out of action it was more difficult than it should have been. Finally, after ten minutes or so, fiddling with the wick to make sure that it was soaked in fluid, a flame appeared.

  The glow lit up the place. He walked to the door at one end of the room. On the other side was a kitchen and mess hall with long tables and benches and beyond that was a primitive bathroom with open showers and two toilet cubicles. He tried one of the taps but nothing came out – the pipes were likely frozen.

  Back in the mess area, a row of cupboards lined one wall – potential secret access points, though after checking every one, he came up empty handed. Fitz walked back through the room where he’d landed and tried the door at the other end. Immediately he was overwhelmed by the smell. ‘Oh my word!’ he lifted his good arm to cover his nose. The place was alive with vermin, but that wasn’t all.

  ‘Paydirt,’ Fitz muttered to himself as he pushed his way inside among the military-issue crates with their Russian labels. He could see some of the equipment through the slatted timbers and knew immediately that none of this was left over from the war. Weaving his way through the munitions to the wall at the far side of the room he looked in vain for an exit. There had to be one here somewhere. This much ordinance hadn’t come down through that hatch.

  Fitz searched high and low, his eyes scanning for anything anomalous. He was just about to give up and head back to the other room when he spotted a patch of concrete that was a slightly different colour to the rest of the wall. He rubbed his hand over it and realised it wasn’t concrete at all. The man could feel his spirits lifting. He did his best to dislodge the plate, but he needed some tools. It obviously housed the mechanism for a secret door. Hurrying back to the kitchen he located a bread and butter knife and a fork – not exactly what he was after, but better than nothing.

  Ignoring the pain in his shoulder that was getting worse, Fitz scurried back to the other room where he prodded and poked and finally removed the covering.

  ‘Damn,’ he said, his heart sinking as he realised there was more to this than he’d hoped. He needed some pincers.

  Fitz’s plan earlier in the day had been to follow Fox, Heike and Axel when they left the coffee shop and that’s exactly what he’d done, keeping his distance, of course. Fox had told his son that they were off to a meeting – and Fitz was keen to find out who that was with.

  The three of them had walked a little way along the Bahnhofstrasse before they jumped into an electric taxi. Fitz had grabbed another one and instructed the driver to follow the vehicle as it wound its way up and up along the narrow roads that led to the highest part of the village at the northern tip. He’d glimpsed their taxi come to a halt outside an isolated farmhouse at the end of the road and made sure that his driver let him out near a cluster of lodges further below, though it did mean some swift uphill walking. He’d sent Ed a message to let him know where they’d gone and suggested he might like to look the place up and see who owned it. As he’d reached the house, taking cover in a stand of pine trees, Fitz had heard a couple of snowmobiles start up. They’d taken off across the snowy landscape, Fox and Heike doubling on one machine and Axel behind them.

  Fitz should have left them to it and had a snoop around the building, but the sight of another snowmobile in the garage was too tempting. He’d checked to see there was no one around then commandeered the vehicle, following the others’ tracks, but keeping a long way back out of sight. Except that the parallel imprints suddenly stopped right in front of a granite mountain covered in snow – as if the snowmobiles and their riders had disappeared into thin air. It was the most curious thing. Fitz had hidden his vehicle in a thick stand of trees and decided to walk. He’d trekked to the top of the ridge and had been about to turn back when the earth had opened up below him and he’d fallen
into the bunker.

  Fitz walked back towards the door and pulled his phone out, sitting it on top of a pile of crates. He tried to call Ed, but the signal was dropping in and out. He’d have to send a message instead. It was tedious using one finger to type and he’d only managed a couple of words when he felt something brush against his leg. The man looked down to see a rat climbing up his trousers. Fitz kicked out, but the surprise caused him to bump the phone, which clattered through a gap in the timber slats. The device was now firmly wedged halfway down between the contents, completely beyond his reach. ‘Oh darn!’ he exclaimed. The top of the crate was nailed down and with only one good arm he wondered how he was going to retrieve it. Fitz needed his phone. And even more than that he needed to get out of there.

  ‘What do you mean Fitz is missing?’ Kensy gasped. The words had made her blood run cold, especially given their parents had disappeared for almost four months just over a year ago.

  ‘He sent a message earlier to let me know he’d followed the Van Leers to a farmhouse on the northern tip of the village and then he’s just sent another one now – though it was certainly unfinished. I’ve tried everything to get hold of him and he’s not responding. The GPS tracker has stopped functioning too. I think his battery must be dead,’ Ed explained. ‘Though he wouldn’t usually be so careless.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s turned it off on purpose,’ Max said. ‘What did the message say?’

  Ed passed his son the phone. Max looked at the screen and read the words aloud. ‘Help. Trapped . . .’

  The children both swallowed hard. But it was Kensy who was immediately pragmatic.

  ‘At least we know he’s alive,’ she said. ‘Fitz is a professional, Dad. He can pick locks better than anyone, even me, and he’s fitter than all of us. He’ll be back.’

  ‘What if he’s hurt?’ Max said. ‘What if the Van Leers saw him following them? If Fox and Heike are selling weapons to the highest bidders, then who knows what else they’re capable of. And why did Axel come home alone?’

  ‘Are the Van Leers back now?’ Kensy asked.

  Ed nodded. He and Song had taken turns keeping a lookout for the pair.

  Anna hadn’t said a word the entire time. She was standing at the bench, sipping a cup of tea after having spent forty-five minutes downstairs in the spa and sauna unwinding from the day’s skiing. The tension had immediately returned upon hearing about the Beacon hack and then when Ed received Fitz’s message she remembered exactly why this was not the life she wanted for her family any more. ‘Kensy’s right,’ Anna said. ‘Fitz is resourceful and he doesn’t usually make mistakes.’

  ‘Lucky him,’ Max muttered.

  Anna looked at her son. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  Max glanced at his sister who narrowed her eyes at the boy. ‘If you don’t tell them, I will.’

  ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘I saw the firefighter from the Houses of Parliament. He was at the grocery store. Kensy and I followed him and we know where he’s staying.’

  ‘What?’ Anna blinked. ‘Why would he be here?’ She looked at her husband. ‘Has anything come of that “gas leak”?’

  Ed shook his head.

  Kensy nudged her brother. ‘And the rest.’

  Max explained about his encounter with James Strawbridge at football and why he hadn’t told anyone.

  ‘I thought I was probably out of line and given you said that Granny likes the man a lot I thought she wouldn’t be impressed by my being such a smart alec.’

  ‘Your grandmother might like him, but that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t listen to what you have to say, Max,’ Ed said. He fiddled with his watch and projected an image into the air. It was the CCTV footage Cordelia and Rupert had reviewed of the plumber in the office.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Kensy asked.

  ‘It’s the fellow who we believe planted the malware in the Beacon office. But he’s a bit like your firefighter. He seems to have come from nowhere,’ the man said.

  While Ed and the twins were talking, Song had finished preparing dinner, which he began to serve up, with Anna’s help.

  ‘I’m not very hungry, Mum,’ Max said as she loaded their plates with roast meat, baked potatoes, cauliflower au gratin and green beans.

  ‘I’ll have yours then. I’m starving,’ Kensy said.

  ‘I don’t know how you can eat with Fitz missing and knowing that guy is here in Zermatt.’ Max looked at his sister.

  ‘Did you forget we’ve been skiing today? You know I’m always starving afterwards and there’s no point not eating. We’re going to need all our energy tomorrow to keep watch on everyone. The Van Leers, Soren, the fake firefighter – the list is getting bigger and Granny wants us to gather as much intel as possible,’ Kensy said.

  The family took their plates to the dining room table and sat down just as the television screen flickered and Cordelia Spencer appeared on the screen.

  ‘Hello, darlings. Have I got you at a bad time?’ she asked.

  Anna sniffed. Any time the woman appeared lately it was a bad time as far as she was concerned.

  ‘We’ve just sat down to dinner, Mother,’ Ed replied.

  ‘I won’t keep you then, but I wanted to let you know that we think we have a solution moving forward. Your clever brother has been investigating and there’s a data storage company we’re looking at – offsite so that this can never happen again,’ the woman said.

  ‘That’s good news, Mother,’ Ed replied. ‘But have you secured the data internally for now?’

  ‘Looks promising,’ she said. ‘Any sign of Fitz?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Ed said. ‘But I’ll keep you posted.’

  ‘Your brother is flying out tomorrow to meet the head of this company. They have an office in Bern. Perhaps you should meet with them as well. It’s only a couple of hours down the mountain on the train,’ Cordelia said.

  ‘Fine,’ Ed agreed. ‘Tell Rupert to send me the address and the time and I’ll meet him there.’

  Max’s stomach was churning. He was waiting for his father to tell his grandmother about the fake firefighter and James Strawbridge, but Ed didn’t.

  ‘I’ll speak with you later and let me know the second you hear anything from Fitz,’ the woman said, shutting off the link before anyone had time to say goodbye.

  Max looked at his father who had picked up his cutlery and was tucking into his dinner.

  ‘Thanks,’ the boy said. ‘For not telling her.’

  ‘It’s all right, mate. I think we should do some more investigating of our own before we involve your grandmother. She has enough to deal with at the moment.’ Ed gave the boy a grin.

  Anna smiled at her husband. ‘Thank you,’ she mouthed from the other end of the table. But she was worried about her son. The last thing Max needed was another night of terrors.

  Soren sat at his desk, looking out at the sparkling lights from the chalets on the hillside opposite. High above them he could just make out the silhouette of the mighty Matterhorn in the moonlight. He smiled to himself. Today had been amazing – new friends, perfect snow, landing that helicopter trick he would never have attempted if it wasn’t for Kensy and Max. Those kids were so much braver than he was. Thankfully he’d made it home before Axel and spent the past couple of hours in his room, though he hadn’t been doing his schoolwork. He’d done some drawing in his sketchbook and logged his exercise, or what he thought would have been equivalent to his afternoon on the slopes. For the past hour he’d been doing some research on the computer.

  Soren looked at the screen. His father always accused him of wasting his time playing games, but nothing could have been further from the truth. Games weren’t of any interest to him, though finding ways to penetrate supposedly impenetrable fortresses – that was another thrill altogether. His father often boasted that no one knew their way around computer code the way he did – one day Soren would prove the old man wrong. Just not yet.

  With a bit of luck his parents and Axel would be out
on business again tomorrow. The weather forecast was clear and he really wanted to spend more time with the twins.

  There was a knock on the door and Sylvie poked her head around.

  ‘What are you looking so happy about?’ she asked, pleased to see the wide grin on the boy’s face.

  ‘Aren’t I allowed to enjoy myself?’ Soren asked, half closing the lid of his laptop. Sylvie caught a glimpse of the drawing he’d been working on. It was a girl with long hair tumbling over her shoulder.

  ‘Who’s that?’ the woman asked, raising her eyebrows.

  Soren blushed and closed the book. ‘No one. Just a portrait I’ve been working on for art.’

  ‘It’s very good,’ she said. ‘I wish you smiled like this every day – it makes me happy too.’ Sylvie stared at the boy for longer than she should have. ‘Oh, there was a reason why I came up. Dinner is almost ready and your father has asked to see you in his study.’

  Soren’s shoulders slumped as he pushed the lid of his computer down and stood up.

  He turned to face the woman. ‘Do you like working for my parents?’

  Sylvie frowned, taken aback by the question.

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘They are very good to me.’

  ‘No, they’re not. They are bossy and mean and Mama is so jealous of you. I don’t understand why you stay. I’m sure that they pay you pittance too,’ the boy said. ‘They didn’t get rich being generous. I can vouch for that.’

  ‘Sometimes there are other reasons, more important than money,’ Sylvie replied with a smile.

  ‘I’m sure that my parents don’t think there is anything in this world more important than that. Except for plastic surgery and the diets and trying to be young,’ Soren said. ‘They really don’t have a lot going for them, do they?’

  Sylvie chuckled then her smile melted. ‘They have you. The most perfect boy in the world.’

  Soren turned and looked at her then raced across the timber floor and hugged her tightly.

  ‘I love you, Sylvie,’ he whispered, his voice muffled in her woollen jumper.